In an exit interview with Harvard Business Review this month, outgoing Walmart CEO Doug McMillon explained why he stepped aside.
I probably wouldn’t mention this here, except that what he said caught my attention. He didn’t hide behind the usual corporate euphemisms about “timing” or “the right moment.”
Instead, he basically said that he realized the person taking over for him, the head of Walmart’s U.S. business, John Furner, was better suited than he would be for where the world is going next.
“[W]hen you see someone who can run the laps ahead better and faster,” he said, “the right thing to do is to hand them the baton, step aside, and cheer them on.”
In corporate America, especially at the scale of Walmart, that’s a rare and self-aware thing to say.
A CEO who doesn’t wait to go
Let’s anchor the basics. Walmart announced in mid-November that McMillon would retire on January 31, 2026, and that Furner would take over as president and CEO on February 1.
McMillon was 59 at the time; Furner was 51. McMillon’s own Walmart bio describes him as starting in 1984 as an hourly associate in a Walmart warehouse and serving as CEO from February 2014 through January 2026.
So no, this isn’t a Warren Buffett situation. It’s not “I’m 94, and I want to spend more time with my family.”
It’s a still-young CEO—by modern CEO standards—choosing to move on and explicitly crediting his successor as better suited. In fact, he went on to explain in some pretty sharp detail what he thinks Furner has that he doesn’t.
“John has a unique ability to learn about emerging technologies and apply them quickly in our business,” McMillon told Harvard Business Review.
He added that Furner is “wired to execute” on Walmart’s “people-led and tech-powered” mantra “better than I ever could.”
Again: not subtle. It matters because it tells you what McMillon thinks the future requires.
Amazon versus Walmart
If you want to map this to the defining competitive force in Walmart’s modern era, start with one date: July 26, 2005.
That’s when Amazon introduced Prime, its first membership program built around unlimited two-day shipping for a flat annual fee.
From there, Amazon’s flywheel got stronger. Then, AWS arrived in 2006, beginning the era where Amazon could fund brutal retail competition with profits coming from somewhere else.
By the time McMillon became Walmart CEO in 2014, his job wasn’t simply “run Walmart.” Essentially, it was to turn the biggest brick-and-mortar company on Earth into something that could fight a tech-driven competitor without losing what made Walmart Walmart.
He took some big swings.
In 2016, Walmart agreed to acquire Jet.com for about $3 billion in cash plus additional Walmart shares over time—a major bet on accelerating e-commerce capabilities and talent.
In 2020, Walmart launched its own membership offering, Walmart+. It’s also explicitly a move into the subscription-plus-benefits playbook that Amazon had normalized.
Now, over roughly the last year, the company has gone all-in on AI—rolling out generative-AI tools for employees, building customer-facing AI assistants like “Sparky,” and framing artificial intelligence as central to the next phase of how people shop and how Walmart operates.
Which brings us back to Furner and what McMillon chose to say, on the record, on the way out.
What’s next?
If you believe the next phase of the fight is “people-led and tech-powered,” then the CEO who is “wired” to execute on emerging tech isn’t just a nice-to-have. He’s the baton-pass.
So, who is John Furner in this story? Walmart’s own description of Furner’s recent role makes the point more concrete.
Since 2019, as CEO of Walmart U.S., he’s been responsible for the core engine that blends merchandising with tech: e-commerce, the company’s fast-growing advertising business, its supply chain, and newer bets in health and digital services.
That’s essentially the front line of Walmart’s competition with Amazon—where logistics, data, and customer experience matter as much as price and product.
In other words, if McMillon spent a decade steering Walmart through its first big digital transformation, Furner has been operating the tech-and-merchandise machine that comes next.
And it’s a reminder most leaders would rather avoid: sometimes the most strategic move isn’t to hold on longer — it’s to recognize when someone else is better positioned for what comes next, and to make the handoff cleanly.
Plenty of executives talk about putting the company first. Far fewer prove it on the way out.
Other things:
President Trump was set to give the State of the Union address last night, and predicted he would break his own record for longest-ever address to Congress: the 1 hour and 40 minutes he spoke last year (not technically a SOTU, but it looks and sounds like one). I’m writing this beforehand, but the CNBC link here should have live updates and a summary of the speech afterward. (Axios, CNBC)
Jeffrey Epstein hid computers and photographs from U.S. authorities in secret storage lockers, The Telegraph can reveal, including one dating from from 2003, when he was part of a Florida social set that included Trump. Credit card receipts show regular storage payments continued until 2019, the year of his death. Search warrants reviewed by The Telegraph suggest U.S. authorities never raided the lockers, raising the possibility that they may contain unseen evidence relating to Epstein and his associates. (The Telegraph)
British comedian Russell Brand pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to new counts of rape and sexual assault. Brand, already facing similar charges involving four women, denied the new charges when he appeared in Southwark Crown Court. A trial is scheduled for June and expected to last four to five weeks. On Tuesday, Brand arrived at court wearing a white cowboy hat and sunglasses. Asked how he was feeling, Brand, who said in 2024 he had become a Christian, told reporters he’s “blessed.” (CBC)
In the past eight months, there has been a 13 percent increase in new recruits to the Canadian Armed Forces, the country’s defense minister said Tuesday. “Canadians want to serve,” Defense Minister David McGuinty said. “They’re very engaged in the project called ‘Canada’ right now. I think they want to make sure that Canada remains a secure and sovereign country.” (Politico)
A divided Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that Americans can’t sue the U.S. Postal Service, even when employees deliberately refuse to deliver mail. By a 5-4 vote, the justices ruled against a Texas landlord, Lebene Konan, who alleges her mail was intentionally withheld for two years. Konan, who is Black, claims racial prejudice played a role in postal employees’ actions. (AP)
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said on Tuesday she is considering legal action following a comment by tech billionaire Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, that alleged she was connected to drug cartels. Musk’s post on X followed the capture and killing of Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) leader Nemesio Oseguera, “El Mencho”, by Mexican security forces. (Yahoo News)
Television news anchor Savannah Guthrie said on Tuesday that her family is offering up to $1 million for information that leads to finding her mother, Nancy, who was abducted from her home more than three weeks ago. Ms. Guthrie, a “Today” show host, made the new offer in a four-minute video posted on Instagram in which she acknowledged that her 84-year-old mother may already be dead, but said the family was holding out hope for a miracle.(NYT)
Thanks for reading. Photo by Zack Yeo on Unsplash. I wrote about some of this before at Inc.com. See you in the comments.
So glad you wrote about something other than whatever that was last night.
This was a far better story instead.
Well stated Bill. Although positive impact is certainly critical, purposeful succession planning is arguably the single greatest element of an exceptional legacy be it in business, the military, or in families.